Trumbull White
Charles Trumbull White was a prominent American journalist, newspaper and magazine editor, war correspondent, explorer, world traveler, travel writer, and author. Known as Charley White during his early years while growing up, as an adult he dropped his first name and became professionally known simply as Trumbull White. During his lifetime, he became associated in one way or another with many prominent Americans, including Henry C. Wallace, Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Chicago socialite Mrs. Potter Palmer', Ernest Hemingway, publisher George Haven Putnam, and numerous leading journalists across the United States.
Early life and education
White was born in Winterset, Iowa on August 12, 1868, a son of John Trumbull White and Frances Anna McCaughan White. His father was a community leader and excelled in industry as senior partner in White, Munger, & Company, a woolen manufacturing enterprise. John died when Charley was 10 years old, and Charley continued living at home with his mother and siblings. Among his boyhood friends in Winterset was Henry C. Wallace, who later became publisher of Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines and also served as secretary of agriculture under presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Charley's first journalistic experience as a youth was writing a letter to the editor of the Iowa State Register in Des Moines which the editor published. When he graduated from Winterset High School in 1886, he delivered an oration entitled "Life's Drama".Following graduation in 1886, Charley attended Amherst College in Massachusetts for two years. It was during this time that he dropped his first name and used the name Trumbull White the rest of his life. He joined Delta Upsilon, a non-secret, non-hazing fraternity, and was the recording secretary for the Amherst chapter. He did not finish a degree but left the college when he took a job as City Editor for the Decatur ''Morning Review'' in 1888.
Career in newspaper journalism
Following brief newspaper experiences in Decatur, IL and in Evansville, Indiana, White moved to Chicago and worked for three newspapers there from 1890-1903. He worked successively for the Chicago Morning News, the Chicago Times, and the Chicago Record. He was joined on some of his journalistic endeavors by his wife, Katherine. The year after their marriage, while Trumbull was reporting for the Chicago Times, they went on a canoeing expedition in southwest Ontario in Canada along the U. S. border. On their expedition, they traveled through relatively unexplored areas and together wrote a series of articles that were entitled "Through Darkest America". They were published in Outing: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Sport, Travel, and Recreation from October, 1892 through March, 1893. The articles included photos, illustrations of the authors, and many scenes from their expedition.Also, in the 1890s while he was working with the various Chicago papers, White was watching the turmoil in the Far East and the outbreak of war between China and Japan in 1894 which ended in a stunning Japanese victory. He felt the importance of writing this for the American reading public was that “it is necessary to say no more than that the conflict involves directly nations whose total population includes more than one-fourth of the human race, as well as the commercial and other interests of all the European and American nations.”
More than a year before the Spanish-American War broke out, White was sent as a special correspondent to cover events during the growing crisis between the United States and Spain over events in Cuba. Although critical of Spain's rule of Cuba, he also blasted the rising yellow journalism in America, stating that “The number of reliable correspondents who have been reporting the course of the war to the American press are few in number, not more than ten or twelve.”
Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the Chicago Record organized a war staff for reporting likely events if and when the war began, which included both Trumbull White and his wife, Katherine. The newspaper supplied its own staff dispatch boat in the Caribbean to carry correspondents wherever the fighting occurred. After the war began, White was placed in charge of a dispatch boat for the Record which in July, 1898 was running between Santiago de Cuba and Kingston, Jamaica. White and Katherine both witnessed action during the war and wrote accounts of the incidents they covered. Katherine also served as a nurse with American Red Cross, serving under Clara Barton. After the war, the Chicago Record put many of their correspondents' stories, including both White's and Katherine's, in book form and was entitled The Chicago Record's War Stories by Staff Correspondents.
From newspaper to magazine journalism
In 1903, Trumbull White shifted his career from newspapers and moved into magazine journalism. This began when he was appointed editor of a new magazine entitled The Red Book Illustrated, now known as Redbook. Under his editorship, the magazine published short stories but not serials, and included a section on photographic art devoted to popular actresses. By the end of the second year the magazine was producing a profit with a circulation of some 300,000 subscribers with sales in New York exceeding those in Chicago.His success at The Redbook Illustrated led to Trumbull White's move to New York. The publishing house of D. Appleton & Company in New York had acquired the Booklover's Magazine of Philadelphia, renamed it as Appleton's Booklover's Magazine, and called White to become its editor. A year after assuming the editorship, the word Booklover's was dropped from the title, and the magazine then became known simply as Appleton's Magazine. White wrote editorials for the first few pages of each issue. He also wrote on various contemporary topics that often reflected a critical view of the Muckrakers, Progressive Era journalists who critically examined the nation's social and economic problems and whose influence with the public was reaching its height at about that time.
White then spent short periods of time at several other magazines. He was hired to help in the startup of a new magazine, Adventure, which was very different from Appleton's in that Adventure published more pulp fiction stories reminiscent of dime novels. White kept a very low profile with Adventure, his name never appeared in the magazine, he wrote no editorials or letter columns, and he left either late in 1911 or early in 1912. White moved next to Everybody's Magazine and served as editor from 1912 to 1914. Everybody's had been founded in 1899 by the famous Philadelphia merchant, John Wanamaker. By the time White came to the magazine, it was already well established. It featured news, news analysis, essays, editorials on news events, biographical serials, theatrical reviews, and popular fiction. During White's tenure, Everybody's published views on the course of World War I by H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Gilbert K. Chesterton. During White's time at Everybody's, circulation stood at about 500,000.
In addition to his years of experience as a magazine editor, White was also a contributor to other magazines as well as to his own. These included the Saturday Evening Post, the New Outlook, and Metropolitan. His contributions extended over forty years from the early 1890s to the 1930s.
Association with Ernest Hemingway
The lives of Trumbull White and Ernest Hemingway intersected in the summer of 1917 and again in the spring of 1918. The first encounter occurred at Bay View Association, or simply Bay View, a Methodist camp near Petoskey, Michigan located on Traverse Bay off the northeast shore of Lake Michigan. White had taught journalism short courses there as early as 1895 and had become editor of The Bay View Magazine. Many prominent Americans were known to vacation or speak at Bay View, such as vice-president Thomas R. Marshall, former vice-president Charles W. Fairbanks, Chicago social worker Jane Addams, perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, African-American educator Booker T. Washington, and the disability rights leader Helen Keller.White may have known the Hemingway family before 1917. Ernest had grown up spending summers there. His sister, Marcelline, spent the summer of 1917 with the White family, and Ernest had become friends with one of White's sons, Kenneth S. White. At the age of 18, Hemingway was just getting started in his writing career, and after the end of a party approached White for advice about writing. His essential question was how he could improve his writing and also how he could do it quickly and be better recognized in the field. White “received him kindly,” talked with him openly, and replied that he should learn to write by simply writing and to write on subjects that he could draw on from his own personal experiences.
The second encounter took place in May, 1918, when Hemingway was about to be shipped to Europe to work as an ambulance driver in Italy. His father, Clarence, urged him to stop in New York and see White again before leaving. Ernest was eager for another visit with White and they met on May 19 for a last conversation about writing. It is not known what transpired at the meeting, but several Hemingway biographers have noted how he took White's advice in his future publications, especially in The Sun Also Rises.
From active journalism to consulting
In 1919, White joined the Leo L. Redding Company in New York. The company was designed to help all kinds of organizations such as colleges, political campaigns, and business organizations to successfully raise funds for educational, business, and political purposes. White served as vice-president of the company and after 1930 as editorial counsel.He also worked with the American Free Trade League, led by publisher George Haven Putnam, which advocated for free trade and against protectionism during the Great Depression in the 1930s. White was a member, and in 1931, when a group of these free trade advocates formed the Council For Tariff Revision, White also joined that group and served as the organizing secretary. The council attempted to pressure Congress into reducing tariffs, but was not successful and apparently ceased functioning by 1933.